Coach Me_A Bad Boy Romance

by Lulu Pratt

  Catya stayed silent, her brows pensive, as if not quite sure of my argument, so I continued:

  “Plus, I knew the limitations of my job when I took it, and I knew the limitations when I became involved with you. I knew them, and I defied them anyways. That was my choice, and you shouldn’t bear any fault. Besides — it was worth it. One-hundred percent, absolutely worth it.”

  “Really?” she said at last, a little hope beginning to creep in at the corners of her face.

  “Yes, Catya. Of course.”

  Without warning, as if the thought had shocked her system, she blurted out, “I can quit the team.”

  “What?”

  She nodded frantically. “Yeah, I can quit the team. I mean, I doubt they’d want to have me now anyways, not as captain, probably not as anything. So I can quit, and then we can be together.”

  “Catya,” I replied, my voice level and not broaching an argument. “You’re not going to do that.”

  “I might,” she shot back, hurt by my dismissiveness.

  “No, no, I meant… you can’t do that. I couldn’t let you, not in good conscience. You’d lose your scholarship, and I know how much it means to you and your family. If you lost your scholarship on my behalf, well, I’d never be able to forgive myself. And then we couldn’t have a relationship, or whatever this is, because you’d be angry and I’d be guilty and it would be horrid. Your parents would hate me, you’d hate me and I’d hate me.”

  She looked out of the windows of the bus, her energy dulling. She was a smart girl. She knew I was right, though whether or not she wanted to admit it was another question.

  “Okay,” she whispered, her spirit broken. “Okay.”

  We stood in silence for a moment, and I thought distantly that it was a good thing the bus driver had stepped off to stretch her legs. I wasn’t sure what she’d make of this conversation.

  Catya moved further down the aisle, pacing closer to me. We were now only a few feet apart — and the emotional distance between us was beginning to close too.

  “What’s your plan?” she asked simply. I heard, in her voice, the reluctant echo of acceptance, at least for the time being.

  “Plan? I’m supposed to have one of those?” I joked. Her face wasn’t budging for humor at the moment, though, so I replied more earnestly, “I’m going to quit.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  Catya shook her head, and her tone was fierce, almost angry, when she replied, “No, I’m not letting you do that. Nice try, but you need to think up something less horrible.”

  I stepped forward, and put my hand to her chin, tilting her eyes until they met mine. “It’s not your choice, love. This is what I have to do. And then, maybe, if you’ll still have me… we could be together.”

  What I didn’t say was, even if that means from different countries. I didn’t want to bring up my immigration situation, knowing full well it would just upset Catya even more, maybe cause her to quit the team right on the spot. No, this challenge needed to be mine and mine alone.

  “You can’t go,” she whimpered, tears welling up in her eyes, tears that had probably been threatening to spill for the entire bus ride.

  “I can, and I will. Frankly, it’s either that or they fire me. I can wait for them to hear the truth from somebody else, from another player, or I can march in there tomorrow and quit. There are no other realistic options,” I finished.

  I couldn’t let her see how much it would hurt me to quit, how painful it would be to tell my mother. No, I had to stay strong.

  A tear escaped from her eye, stumbling along the edges of those thick lashes. I caught it with my index finger.

  “Don’t cry,” I murmured. “Don’t cry, it’s going to be all right.”

  “No, it’s not,” she gasped out, her crying now morphed into full blubbering. “Nothing’s ever going to be all right again without you here. Simon, I — I love you.”

  My breath hitched in my throat. Did she just say what I think she said? In spite of everything else that was going on, my breast lit up, as if from a fire within. I hadn’t wanted to be overbearing, to say it too soon, but now that she’d come right out and — well, fuck it.

  “I love you too,” I declared. “Catya, I’ve loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, and that love has grown every second since.”

  Now that I’d up and said it, all other challenges seemed to drop from my horizon. Loving her, freely and openly, was enough to keep me going through anything.

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Of course,” I laughed. “And it just makes me all the more sure that I need to quit. We’re going to find a way to be together, love, this I swear. No job is worth losing you.”

  “Okay,” she managed to reply, her pink lips quivering delicately. I wanted to kiss those lips, to wrap her in my arms and make everything all right, but it was the wrong time for kissing, and I was only human — I couldn’t make everything all right. No one could.

  “Okay then. Now listen, I’m not going to be at practice tomorrow—”

  “Why?” she interjected.

  “Because I’m going to have already spoken to David, the Athletics Director, by then. So…” I trailed off.

  She understood. “So you’ll already have quit.”

  Or been fired, I thought to myself, but said aloud, “Yes, that’s right.” Then, I added, “But you have to go to practice.”

  She rolled her eyes and arched those perfect brows. “Uh, pass.”

  I doubled down, insisting, “Seriously. You have to go to practice and make things right with the team. They need you to lead them. I mean, you saw them today, when you were in… when you were the worse for wear. They were so disconnected, so discordant without you. You’re the glue that holds the Stallions together. And I know it’s hard, but you have to go be their captain.”

  “Simon, they looked at me like I was a pariah today, like they’d never been more disappointed in their lives. Like they’d just watched their hero fall or something,” she said quietly. “They fucking hate me, and I’m not going to practice.”

  “No, they don’t. They’re upset, sure, and that’s fair, they’re entitled to feel whatever they’re feeling, but they don’t hate you.” I paused, and added, “You have to go sometime anyway. You’re not quitting the team.”

  “You won’t let me.”

  “Yeah,” I laughed, “because I’m right. You’re going to have to go back eventually to keep the scholarship, and better sooner than later. If you go tomorrow, you can stop the rumors from taking root and becoming impossible to whack away further down the line. If you go now, it’s a show of strength. To not go… it would be like tucking your head in the sand and admitting defeat. And I know you don’t want to be a cowardly ostrich.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not. Go to practice tomorrow. It’s not going to be fun at first, but you’ve got to do it, if not for you, then for me. Explain yourself and listen to what they have to say, then decide if I’m wrong. I’m guessing they’d be happy to have you back in the fold of the team. Besides being your teammates, they’re your friends. They want to be on good terms with you, it’s just how people are. Plus, the girls need a captain, Catya, and like it or not, that’s you.”

  “But what if—”

  “No but’s. Just go there tomorrow and try. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  “They could stone me. Like, throw rocks at me, Bible-style,” she proffered. “Or embroidered a scarlet ‘A’ on my jersey.”

  “Do either of those seem like things that would really happen?”

  She admitted, “I guess not. Not the rocks, at least.”

  “All right, then it’s all settled. You’ll go to practice, say what you have to say, and then go back to leading the team. Deal?”

  “I’m sorry you won’t be there with me,” she said. “You sure you don’t wanna change your mind?”

  I took a deep breath, and then exhaled for a lo
ng few seconds. This was my personal hurdle, too. I didn’t think the girls would mistreat her, but if they did, I’d effectively have thrown her to the wolves. All on her own, no shoulder to cry on. That would be my doing, the second time I’d done egregious wrong by Catya. We’d barely withstood the first, and I wasn’t sure we’d make it through a second.

  “I’m sorry too,” I replied finally. “More sorry than you can know. But I’ll be there in spirit, love.” It felt good now, to call her ‘love.’ Like it fit better, when it really meant what it ought to mean, if that made sense.

  “Promise?” she asked, her eyes gazing up at me with hope and affection.

  “Of course. You’ll be the only thing on my mind. I’ll be sending you so many good vibes that you’re gonna telekinetically DM me back and say, ‘Stop, please, you’re flooding my mental inbox and I’m marking it as spam.’”

  She chortled at my horrible joke, which only made me love her more. Then she nodded and breathed deeply. “All right, all right. I’m gonna go to practice tomorrow and take back my team.”

  We high-fived and she grinned for the first time all day. I’d missed that grin.

  “After all,” she continued, “we have a championship to win.”

  Chapter 26

  Catya

  Simon and I reluctantly parted ways, both knowing that we had stuff to take care of on our own. He had to write a letter of resignation, which I still felt was wildly unnecessary, and I had to find a place to sleep.

  See, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to spend the night in my own room, a mere few feet away from Grace. She hated my guts right about now, and sleeping in the same room as her just seemed like a recipe for disaster. Maybe one day, in the distant future, she could forgive me, but at the moment, the wounds were far too raw.

  So after I got off the bus and grabbed my stuff, I found a nearby bench to sit on, underneath a large oak tree. I pulled out my phone and texted one of my few friends who was neither in my sorority nor on my team. Her name was Alex, and we knew one another from being on the same pre-med track for years. Granted, we weren’t all that close, and my request to sleep over would certainly be odd, but I’d helped her out on a litany of tough tests, so I figured, hoped she owed me one.

  I wrote: Hey, weird question, but would you mind if I slept at your place tonight? I can sleep on the couch and be out in the morning.

  The response was immediate.

  Of course. Is everything okay?

  People had asked me that so very many times today and I still didn’t have an answer. Was everything okay? Probably not. Would it be okay? Maybe. Not yet, but maybe.

  Totally. Everything’s totally okay, my roommate’s just having her out-of-town boyfriend over for the night and I need a place to stay.

  It was a weird, exaggerated lie, and Alex would probably wonder why I couldn’t just stay in another room in the sorority, but she was polite enough to disregard this and give me her address.

  And so it came to pass that I slept on her couch that night. She’d tried to offer me the bed, but I’d refused. I didn’t want to take up any more space than I already was. Alex, such a sweetheart, remained firm in her choice to not question me about what was going on, and I could’ve hugged her for it. But we weren’t quite at the hugging level of intimacy, so I figured I’d just owe her my stellar notes for all the future classes we’d take together.

  That evening, I dreamt of Simon. What else was new? More importantly, I finally caught up on my sleep. I was no longer walking around like a zombie, practically hallucinating. It was a lovely change of pace. In fact, my exhaustion was so total that I fell asleep at eight that night and woke up at eleven, thus missing my morning class. For once, though, I didn’t care. After all, missing a class wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me in the last twenty-four hours.

  You needed your rest for what’s to come, my brain suggested.

  That was true. In a few hours I’d have to face down the team and explain myself, an undertaking which required plenty of sleep.

  When I finally did arise, I had a couple of hours before the big… the big… confrontation? Hopefully it wasn’t a confrontation. Maybe the Big Discussion? Ugh, the more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I considered preparing a speech, but that was too stiff. After all, maybe they would just move on.

  Oh, who was I kidding. That wasn’t going to happen.

  I’d have to address it, but ideally, when the moment came, the right words would just spring to mind. I know, I know, I was being too optimistic, but that was me — a naïve believer.

  I slipped a ‘thank you’ note under Alex’s bedroom door. I considered leaving cash, too, but that seemed excessive. A note would suffice.

  From there, I walked to a nearby coffee shop to do work for a few hours. In actuality, I just leaned back on a cushy sofa, much like the one I’d been sleeping on, and thought about everything — about Simon, about my team, about my scholarship. It was hard to accomplish simple tasks when your whole life feels as though it was in jeopardy, which wasn’t that off base, frankly.

  After an unexpectedly good blueberry muffin and a black iced tea, I felt ready to face the team. Or as ready as I’d ever be.

  I grabbed my bag from underneath the coffee table, loaded up my stuff and moved out. Each step that brought me closer to the field caused my pulse to accelerate. I had no idea what to expect, and I was worried that sheer guilt would make me start crying before I could even talk. What a mortifying thought. The thing about tears was that, once they’ve begun, they’re very hard to spontaneously stop. And I was, by nature, a crier.

  Praying that I’d make it through this talk without blubbering like a fool, I crossed the threshold between the outside world and the field.

  I’d made sure to get there early so that I wouldn’t enter to a throng of girls, staring at me expectantly.

  Apparently, I hadn’t gotten there quite early enough, because that was the exact situation I was greeted by — the entire team, crowded around in a loose circle, chattering anxiously like a flock of sparrows.

  The chatter stopped the moment I walked in. Two guesses as to what they were discussing?

  I held up my arm, and waved. Oh that was stupid, shouldn’t have done that. A few of the girls waved back, most of them continued to just stare at me, mute and unsure of how to proceed.

  At last I closed in on the group. The circle opened up and became a semi-circle, like an amphitheater where all the seats faced me. Well, fine. Guess I deserved that. They looked at me with anticipation. What were they hoping I’d say? Were there perfect words?

  “Hey,” I said. No response. Apparently, if there were perfect words, these were not them.

  I gulped, and continued, “So, Coach Simon isn’t going to be at practice today.”

  No surprised faces in the bunch. They’d probably already deduced as much. I wondered distantly if they thought he’d been fired, or was taking a day off to let things cool down. I then wondered, in a much more present way, if any of them had already reported Simon to the governing board. But there was no time to consider that now — again, I was trying very hard to avoid tears, and the thought of one of my teammates turning over my lover was too much to bear.

  I made one final, and dumb, attempt at normalcy.

  “Since he’s not here, I’m going to run practice, okay?” I asked.

  Their faces weren’t in agreement with this plan, but maybe they’d just let it slide?

  Pfft, please. As if.

  Sophia squeaked out, “Um, Catya, what’s going on with you and Simon?”

  That one comment seemed to break the dam. Suddenly, all the girls were asking what was going on between me and him, how long it’d been going on for, what our plans were, if we were official… so many questions that I couldn’t even tell who was speaking. It sounded like one giant noise, rising over me like a tsunami about to crash.

  “Okay,” I interrupted. “One at a time. I’ll answer your questions, but you’ve
got to be organized about it. Hand raising and everything.”

  Beth’s hand popped up first.

  “Yes?” I said, pointing to her.

  “So you’re sleeping with Simon?”

  I wanted to roll my eyes at the word choice, but instead replied frankly, “Yeah. I am. Next question.”

  “How long have you been sleeping with him?” Riri queried.

  I cast my mind back, trying to think. It seemed like ages, but it could only really be a matter of weeks. Was that right? It felt as though we’d been together a lifetime.

  “Not long ago,” I responded. “Right after that midnight practice where we were all drunk.”

  The group nodded, remembering, not like they could forget. So far, this was going all right. The questions were fairly innocuous—

  And then Tanya spoke, saying, “Are you going to keep sleeping with him?”

  My words faltered and I thought maybe I could just ignore that question, but everyone was looking at me with big, lost eyes and I knew I had to answer.

  “I want to,” I said. “But I don’t know if I can.” Well, hell with it, they might as well know the whole story. “Simon’s going to quit right now, so after that—”

  “What?!” Sharon-Ann exclaimed. “He can’t do that!”

  “Yeah, he can’t do that,” Sophia chorused. “We need him here. We need to go to championships, and he’s our best shot. He’s a great coach.”

  The girls all murmured their agreement, and it made me sad, thinking about how much Simon would’ve liked to hear that. His job meant the world to him — and I’d been the one to force him out of the position. Oh God, he’d never be able to buy his mother that house by the sea.

  And just like that, I was crying.

  But that wasn’t the surprising part. After all, I’d been pretty certain I’d cry eventually. No, the real surprise happened when the girls raced to comfort me. They encircled me in a big group hug, patting my shoulders, stroking my hair, as I sobbed in their arms.